I know very few people who entered college particularly comfortable with their religious identity. I knew - and still know - disillusioned atheists: people who felt trapped in the tradition they grew up with and some who were engaged in a particular faith but still wanted to go deeper.

Amira Fawcett is an Engineering senior from Houston, Texas. Her e-mail address is fawcett@dailypennsylvanian.com.

A fire at the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity house early this morning was caused by an electrical overload, according to the Division of Public Safety. The fraternity house, located at 4040 Walnut St., was evacuated at about 3:30 a.m. when brothers reported seeing smoke billowing from a second-floor bedroom.

For some Penn students, senior year is going out of style. Yael Landman, a third-year senior majoring in English and Jewish Studies, started her freshman year as part of the class of 2010. She will be graduating this May along with the class of 2009. Three-year college degrees are gaining attention in the academic world as students look to

For all the Penn students who have ever received Penn State gear as a graduation gift, Quakers basketball can be a source of retribution. Coming into tonight's matchup at the Palestra, Penn holds a commanding 31-12 edge over the school that has plagued its name recognition for so long.

The proposed construction of a casino in Center City was a point of contentious debate at Sunday's Undergraduate Assembly meeting. Almost 40 representatives from several of Penn's minority and religious groups came to support the Casino Development Proposal.

When President-elect Barack Obama moves into the White House on Jan. 20, technology will make the historic move with him. With over three million online donors and many more millions of supporters in an e-mail database, the president-elect is poised to fulfill his pro

As the clock neared midnight on Thursday, College sophomore Raliegh Davis grabbed her friends and ran toward the Bridge Cinema Delux to watch Edward Cullen on the big screen. Like many Penn girls (and some boys), Davis has been bitten by Twilight - the recently-relea

The European sustainability bash has been the global hot ticket for the past several years, but only recently have American cities begun to accept the invitation. San Francisco arrived early, a veritable organic presence with the foresight to ban plastic bags from large grocery stores in 2005.

How does society reconcile the rights of a patient with the moral beliefs of an instiProxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 tion? Carol Petraitis, Director of the Clara Bell Duvall Reproductive Freedom Project of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, addressed this fundamental issue to a small group of students last night at the P

With Penn and George Mason deadlocked at 0-0 early in the second half of their NCAA men's soccer tournament first-round match, the Bulldogs' Eber Martinez took a pass from just outside the Quakers box and drilled the ball into the upper 90.

Tyler Bernardini, in his short time at Penn, has made a habit of carrying the Quakers on his back. He's been the subject of heavy praise and, for opposing coaches, the cause of much frustration. But on Saturday night, during the Red and Blue's 83-62 win over Monmouth at the Palestra, the reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Year took that frustration to a whole new level.

An event hosted this weekend by the Kairos Society, an entrepreneurial organization founded last year by Penn students, sought to show that entrepreneurship encompasses more than just making money. The society chose Bill White, president of the Intrepid Foundation, as its keynote speaker.

By HANNAH GERSTENBLATT Sports Editor-elect hannahgb@dailypennsylvanian.com Pat Knapp is sick of watching his women's basketball team play nice. In a 78-45 loss at Duquesne on Saturday, the Quakers watched the Dukes snatch 22 offensive rebounds and score 21 second-chance points.

Not many students can claim to have felt the emotional rush and physical drain of a marathon. After yesterday, Wharton senior Kristin Moore can declare a total of four marathon experiences. Moore joined dozens of Penn students and 18,000 other runners yesterday morning to participate in the 15th annual Philadelphia Marathon.

In the coming weeks, selected members of the Penn faculty will help shape the next presidential administration by serving on President-elect Barack Obama's transition team. Laurie Robinson, director of the Criminology Department's Master of Science Program, was named to the Justice Department agency review team last week.

When a team adds another notch to the loss column, the coach isn't usually smiling. But after the Penn men's swimming team went 1-1 in its dual meet against Princeton and Cornell in New Jersey on Saturday, coach Mike Schnur could not have been more excited.